mattp

Princess Mountain (a snow/ice/rock route climbed with cc.com's Caveman and David Parker) in the Coast Range. Sloan Peak, with Wotan of Ballard, in the Cascades, in February. Jacob's Ladder (a rock route climbed with half of pub club), in Darrington.

Sorry, Fairweather, if you think I misquoted you. I DO think it is rediculous to suggest that Pinochet may have saved thousands or millions of lives by killing communists. Where do you get this stuff? And no, I don't think I took JayB out of context. He plainly responded to what he imagined to be the assertion that the only reason we invaded Iraq was to take their oil.

Sign me up.

Glasskisser- I generally agree with your comments in this last exchange, but I want to quibble with a couple of minor points: (1) I don't think it is quite right to say that only low end climbers care about bolts. You are right, perhaps, that those who yell the loudest about bolting tend to be less talent in the technical rock realm and that is no surprise: to get to the upper eschelon of the sport you almost have to train at sport crags and gyms. But is not the same as saying all anti-bolt people are suck climbers. (2) the stars that you mention are not too bad on this issue, but top climbers can in fact get very judgmental of others. Those who decry the modern trend toward bolting everything in sight have a valid issue, and I don't think it is productive to put them down for the same reason that I don't like to see Dwayner spray his derisive rhetoric about what cowards the sport climbers are.

That won't work. I'd have to start arguments with myself or, I suppose, I could give my id and password to all the usual suspects.....

Dwayner - When you bring up the exact same tirade in every conceiveable thread, just because the word "Bolt" was mentioned somewhere, and not whether it has anything at all to do with the topic, you are not expressing any "legitimate climber-related viewpoint." You are spraying. Take it to spray, or I will continue to wonder if banning you might be appropriate. LIke I said - I think you make some valid points. Just don't be a - what was that word ChucK said I should call somebody - f***nut?

RuMR- I agree - sort of. I have appreciated Dwayner's willingness to hang in there with his position, and I have at times also enjoyed his condescending insults about the pad people and the sport climbing cowards. But I believe that, as exemplified in this threat, he often attempts to provoke people for absolutely no reason and he really has no point at all but, as Peter Puget has point out, to draw attention to himself. He is really trying to ruin an otherwise good discussion. I agree that Dwayner is an asset on this site and that is why I said that I would like to ban him only temporarily so that he might be able to reflec on the matter and come back able to show some discretion as to where and when he should piss on an ongoing discussion.

Dwayner, I'm sorry to say this, but I think perhaps you should be banned from this site temporarily. You need to figure out that even your fans are by now probably tired of you pathetic grandstanding, and you constant attempt to antagonize is not unlike some of the juvenile antics that have gotten others shut down.

I agree in part with Glasskisser's frustration that the Access Fund has not been able to do more, but I think they probably need more of our support, rather than less. And if somebody wants to take up a collection and fire up a legal effot or start their own lobbying group, or work on local issues at an even more local level, go for it. But I sure hope we can keep our own internal issues (e.g. bolting, or style ethics, or personality conflicts or....) to ourselves.

JayB- Are you just playing dumb here, or are you totally unable to consider that there could be more than one reason behind any given action? It is not all-or-nothing, here, but there are a lot of friends and former employers of the highest level Bush administration officials, and a lot of very big donors, who are making a ton of money on this whole thing. And the at least some of the Democrats have pointed that out.

JayB I don't think anybody ever said that Perhaps you are arguing with yourself here. And, by the way, you are repeating yourself.

As far as I know, from what I've seen in Washington, the Access Fund "strategy" at the local level has been to try to get climbers and land managers to work together, by setting up or at least attending and trying to help facilitate public meetings where there were user conflicts (e.g. Frenchmen's Coulee), making direct contact with land managers and encouraging them to plan for climbing wiht climbers' access in mind and, where possible, trying to get work projects going so that climbers could take direct responsibility for helping solve impact issues identified by the land managers. Personally, I don't think any of these strategies is wrong. One problem they have had, and continue to have is that climbers are generally an unruly bunch, and there is a lot of petty infighting in the climbing community so we just can't seem to organize. I don't know how or whether they could have done better to change this, and I don't know how active or successful they have been in trying to effect changes in land management policy from the top levels of land management downward. If you don't think they have been effective enough, that may or may not be a reason to withdraw your support. From my perspsective, the small annual membership fee is probably money well spent, and I wish more people would get involved.

An increasingly rare characteristic, I'm finding. Does gym and sport climbing develop the proclivity toward hanging around wasting time, and only looking ahead a few steps at a time, or is there something else going on?

Babnik- Do you understand the meaning of the word "sympathy?"

Greg, Re-read my post. I did not suggest they didn't know what they signed up for or that they shouldn't be expected to fulfill their commitment. Is it naive to think that a large number of them at least hoped, if they didn't out-and-out expect, that they'd complete their time without having to spend a year (or more) getting shot at in Iraq? Can't you find even the slightest bit of sympathy for those who gambled and lost?

This thread is starting to get humorous: Fairweather says Pinochet was not a vicious dictator but a benevolent saver of thousands if not millions of lives; JayB tries to maintain the argument that it has nothing to do with a desire to control what goes on in an oil-rich part of the world; GregW opines that reservists who signed up in peace time and expected to play war games for one weekend a month are probably glad to be on active combat duty for at least a year. Have I said anything quite that silly?

That's so he can slip the sugar packets in there, under the table. Colin: take note of this if you really want to be the next Fred.

Prior to our invasion, Iraq was probably one of the the least active of all middle east nations in terms of exporting terrorism -- certainly behind Israel (occupied territories), Saudia Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. Now it IS probably at or near the head of the class as a "hotbed" and a rallying cry for any Islamic malcontent who dislikes the U.S. or thinks they can get ahead by fighting the Jihad. I've said it earlier in the thread, but we got side-tracked arguing about whether capitalism is better than communism and whether Pinochet was in Chile or Argentina or whether he saved thousands or perhaps millions of lives. Whether you like it or not, I think we have to stay in there at this point, no?

Go for Kill de Wabbit!

So the Andinista weighs 4 pounds, and the Kelty may be less, but doesn't the HEAVIEST pack out there weigh something like 7 pounds? What is 3 or 4 pounds' difference, when you are carrying 30 or more? Whatever the answer to the question of this thread is, I say get the pack that is (1) the most comfortable and (2) has the features that you want (this may be that it is tough, or that it has the special shovel pocket, or that it is your favorite color, or that it is lighter), but don't sweat over the ounces if you are going to be carrying bivvy gear, food, water, a climbing rack and a rope. Off topic, I know. But ???? In my view, the lighter weight of the Go Lite or the Cloud are not an important advantage -- if you are going to be carring a significant load. If you are speed-hiking the PCT, or if you are going to be making a summit climb on 5.11 rock with just a sandwich and a windbreaker in your pack, worry about the empty weight of your pack.

Am I wrong, or do I remember correctly that they sacked one of their generals who came out in May and said that they didn't have enough American troups in Iraq and we were going to need many more to keep the peace? Does anybody remember this?

Interesting little tidbit: Some other Picketts explorers were there and it was either Mike Swayne or John Roper or maybe it was Silas Wild who commented that Joan Firey had participated a trip based on a similar vision thirty years ago. He pointed out on the panorama which portion of the traverse her party had completed, but at that moment I was discracted and I wasn't quite paying attention. Way to go, Wayne, Colin and Marko for realizing the fantasy of a forebearer that I bet you didn't even know you had!

Crackbolter- There aee lots of ski approaches to technical climbs around here and, although I have a pair of skis with Silveretta's on them, I usually opt for the telemark gear unless I'm headed for something really technical. I haven't climbed anything XTREME with the telemark boots, but have managed to climb many of the "standard" winter climbs around here with them - N. Ridge of Pinnacle Peak, N Face Chair, N.E. Slab of Da Toof, NE Couloir on Colchuck, .... They do just fine.

They DO suck for rock climbing, and they do not perform well on ice if you don't use rigid crampons, that's for sure!!!

Yes, most climbers would agree with you, that on steep water ice a rigid boot or a rigid boot/crampon combination is vastly preferable. But he's mixing it up a bit, talking about "mixed portions and portions where I remove my crampons altogether." There is a lot of mountaineering terrain where a more flexlible telemark boot (not one of the high calf racing boots) IS more comfortable and just as effective as an AT boot. Don't get me wrong. I would not take up telemark skiing for ski-mountaineering if I were starting out today. But the boots are better for mountaineering than your arguments would suggest.